MUMBAI: “Moving through the masquerade, I just want to see your face,” pleads Sooraj in his newest music video for his song ‘The Actor.’ In the video, Sooraj tells the classic tale of a young artist with big dreams in the unforgiving world of Hollywood – with a twist.

After releasing his 11-song album titled ‘Here We Go,’ Sooraj is now working on bringing those songs to life on the screen with a series of music videos. ‘The Actor,’ he says, is the first of more videos that he has planned.

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Sooraj recently graduated from Musician’s Institute, Hollywood with a degree in vocal performance but has been playing the keyboards since age one and a half, passing his Trinity College Grade 8 keyboard exam at age six, and playing multiple instruments such as the guitar, drums, bass while combining them all into music production. His other music videos for the songs ‘Nemesis’ and ‘City Beat’ raked up over 60,000 and 150,000 views on YouTube respectively, while he performed his songs from the album both in the US and in India. He is also a private pilot, and has in fact shot an aerial scene for the music video from the flight deck of a small aircraft.

The video, shot by LA-based filmmaker Jonas Gaida is a reflection on Sooraj’s own stories and observations of the Hollywood glitz and what goes on behind the scenes. “The song is about people who start out with stars in their eyes and end up pushed to the ground by the world around them. It was inspired by true-life stories of people being forced to warp their original identity and aspirations by the big bad world who wants them to be someone they aren’t.” With a smile, he adds, “I walk on the Hollywood Walk of Fame every day and all I step on are pink stars on the boulevard. I thought to myself, is this the pinnacle of fame – to have a star on the boulevard and have people walk over you? That was what sparked the writing of this song.”

‘The Actor’ can be found on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, and the song is available to stream as part of Sooraj’s album ‘Here We Go,’ on all major platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Saavn and Amazon Play.